United boss Greg Abbott (GA) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Andy Wood (AW) following Carlisle's 1-0 pre-season friendly win at home to Bolton Wanderers this evening, Abbott pleased with the performance after the Blues lost 4-1 to Burnley on Saturday:
AW
After Saturday you wanted an improvement, and that was much better?
GA
Yeah, I thought we actually played some decent stuff when we had the ball on Saturday, certainly in the second-half. But, we are not going to get very far again if defensively we are not better than we were. I think that is all we talked about in the post-match on Saturday. We trained double on Monday, we trained again this morning, we don’t usually train on the day of a match, we trained again this morning and all we did was defending, defending from the front.
I thought the front players set the trigger for us, I thought Lee Miller and Lewis Guy worked their socks off, as did David Amoo, he was actually very tired. It looked like a pre-season game for him as he had put in that much energy and work. I think what we are trying to do is stop quality coming in from the back into our back line, or into the opposition forwards. I thought the shape of the team was terrific tonight, I thought the energy levels, the determination was absolutely outstanding.
We have just kept a side to nil with I don’t know, with such an embarrassment of riches, with people like Marvin Sordell and Charlie Lee and Jermaine Beckford coming off the bench. That is a fantastic achievement and sets a stall out, and we talked about taking the word friendly out of the game today because it is our season, because we didn’t think we started properly.
That was a flashback to last season with the goals given away, but we said let’s start the season today, this is our season starting. I thought they deserved the praise they will get tonight because they were terrific in terms of their all-round energy and determination.
AW
I know they are just friendlies, but you said you wanted them to hurt after Saturday, so I am guessing you are quite happy to see them buzzing off the back of that tonight?
GA
Yeah, we have got to take a lot of encouragement that that is the right way for us to play, that is the right levels of energy and determination. Look at the back, you wouldn’t have believed the back two central defenders were the same two players from Saturday and today. When we have got people working as hard as they do in front of them, we have got to give them some protection, we can’t just heap all the blame on them. But, at the end of the day they have got to take responsibility for making sure people ahead of them work and plug gaps and stop balls going into danger areas for us too easily.
I thought across the board there were some really, really good performances tonight. I am really, really pleased with them and the message is that we are going to work even harder to try to get this season off to a good start, win back the fans that have gone missing and have a successful season and certainly an improved one that we had last year. On the showings of Saturday, the signs were there in an attacking sense, but defensively again the bad points showed up. But, tonight I thought a lot of the game was really, really decent.
AW
I know you have had a summer of juggling finances to bring in what you can to fill gaps, but you must be getting excited now that the side is starting to look like it is forming a bit?
GA
I am used to having not much money to spend in summers, so I get to come to terms with that pretty comfortably and pretty easily. But, when you look at, and I don’t want to disclose what we have paid for some of the players, but it is a lot lower than other clubs are paying. But, what we are getting is a group that are buying into what we are doing, a group that want to be here, definitely want to be here.
We have got a lad here in Reece James from Manchester United who actually wants to be here for the time-being to learn his trade and to learn his football. If they want to do that we will help them all they can, and that is the only way we can help them if they want come and they want to develop their game and they want to improve. I want to send him back at Christmas a much, much better player with the information to the staff there that he is not far off ready to compete for a place in their first team.
So, they are the benefits of being with us, but along the way there are individual benefits for everybody and then a collective benefit for all the group and all the team and all the fans and all the directors to be better than we have been, and tonight there are some signs that it could be OK.
AW
And Reece already seems to have formed a decent link-up with Matty Robson down the left, and also on the other side with David Amoo and Brad Potts, they seem like they have been together longer than they actually have?
GA
Well, there is certainly some energy and some pace and some youth and some really good endeavour from the four players. Out of the four of them Matty is the only one that comes close to being not classed as a baby, and I don’t mean that with any disrespect. They are basically all learning the game, but they are going to learn from the most difficult place possible, that is in the middle of the pitch in League One football, which is at times brutal. But, there is no better place for them and they are good enough to do it, we have just got to encourage them.
We have got to sometimes put up with the mistakes and the lad to my right will forgive him his back pass, or square pass, in the first minute of the game that nearly cost us a goal, because of the last 89 and a half minutes. But, that is something that he has to learn from that you can’t do that, if it goes 1-0 against us against a side with the quality of Bolton then we could have a mountain to climb.
So, they are little things that hopefully he takes on board, he learns, and the same with Bard, he made one or two mistakes. They learn when to keep the ball, when to go long, when to play short, all those sorts of things. But, there is only sort of Matty whose game has developed and flourished, the rest of them, we don’t know what they are going to produce.
I think that is the good thing about the group we have got, there are four or five players that we don’t know how good they can be yet. We are hoping that they are as good as we think they can be and hopefully what they think they can be themselves.
AW
On the subject of Bolton, it is good that you can get clubs like that here to see the facilities, see the way you guys work and then come Christmas perhaps when your squad is a little bit more bare, you can go to them and they would be quite happy to send players up here?
GA
Well, they would have been until the 88th minute when Liam Noble scythed down Charlie Lee in the opposition half, public relations were going fantastically, but everything we built up Liam Noble has probably destroyed. But, I spoke to Dougie Freedman and I said I would sort him out, and he was tackling without due care and attention wasn’t he at times. But, I will certainly have to go and build the bridges that he has broken down for me.
AW
Despite that, good to see Liam Noble back on the team sheet though, and back on the pitch?
GA
Well, you try telling that to their number eleven.
AW
What about him coming back, is that him now pretty much stepping up towards match fitness for the start of the season or is there still a bit more work to do on his injury?
GA
Well, he begged me to give him 20 minutes tonight, he said he was fit, his ankle is black and blue, it is still black and blue now. But, that is Nobza, he wants to be part of it, and the good thing is that when you have got people knocking on your door because they want to play it means that your team is alright and they see something that might be decent happening and they want to be part of it.
I need those three, they are experienced, I really liked Jack Lynch’s 20 minutes or whatever it was. I really liked the fact he gave the ball away twice and it never affected him, he kept wanting to get on it, he kept getting on it and he kept keeping the ball. At the end we looked like a Championship side didn’t we, we played some really decent stuff with it. So, that is him learning the hard way, gives it away, wins it back, it doesn’t bother him, nothing seems to phase him, so that is great.
I thought David Symington came on and had his best 15-10 minutes for a period, Mark Beck nearly gets his goal, which he always seems to do, it is not a bad knack to have is just score goals. So many positives to come out of the night against a really, really, really expensive well put together squad who are going to be, I am telling you now, guaranteed fighting for the top of the Championship next season.
AW
And Liam back when you didn’t quite expect him to be, but on the other hand you thought Sean O’Hanlon might make it and he hasn’t, what is the situation with that?
GA
Yeah, Sean has got a bit of swelling and inflammation on his knee, not the time to take any risks. So, hopefully Friday or Saturday, possibly Saturday in the game against Rangers he will take part, it won’t probably be as intense as Kilmarnock so we hope to get him through 90 minutes. He might need nurturing through and getting through at not the intensity of Friday night, but he is on his way and hopefully he should be fit for the start.
AW
When we spoke to you on Saturday you said you were close-ish to a deal with Lewis Guy, is that completed yet or not?
GA
It is a bit closer.
AW
How closer, anywhere near, and are you expecting it in a couple of days?
GA
I am hoping by Friday we can have it all wrapped up, listen, we never talk about done deals until they are done. But, I have had a conversation with Lewis, I think verbally we are both agreed on something and John Nixon has OK’d that in principle, so hopefully it is all but done. It just needs Lewis to finally agree and John to find some pieces of paper with all those figures on, get it front of him and he just signs it.
AW
And the other three strikers you have got at the club as well gives you a bit of a headache you haven’t had for a little while having four very good standard strikers to pick from?
GA
Who are the other three very good strikers we have got?
AW
I would go with Josh Gillies, Beck and Miller, would you not agree?
GA
Fantastic, brilliant, listen, it is, you are right, it is something that we have not had. We have got options now as well, we can play with two wide, we can play with a narrow three, we can do whatever we want because we have got different types as well. Becky is a bit similar to Miller but certainly Lewis is different to Josh and Josh is different to the other two as well, so that is great. We have got some pace and some real penetration down the wide outside so things are looking slightly better than they were six weeks ago to be honest with you.
AW
Finally, Kilmarnock on Friday, a chance for some of the lads on the fringe just to sort of play their way into your ideas ahead of the 3rd of August?
GA
I don’t think the lads are worried about that, I think they are looking forward to the Kilmarnock pies that are infamous across the world. So, everybody wants to go, we have got a squad of 23, everybody we have got wants to go up because Colin Nixon has been telling them about the Killie pies.